Friday, November 30, 2007

New Internet Meme!

There's a new flick making the rounds on the Internet. I can't recommend watching it at all, it's MUCH worse than the Goatse pics. (If you don't know what Goatse is, don't even ask. Just count your blessings and remain in blissful ignorance...)

Thursday, November 29, 2007

The Perils Of Cuteness

Introducing the Aquapod! It's marketed to kids, with only 11 oz. per bottle.

The Texas version has stumpier feet, and our local spring water brand is Ozarka.

Ain't them things cute? I snagged a couple at a recent staff meeting where refreshments were available. Wasn't all that thirsty, but I just couldn't resist the adorable little bulgy bottles.

And therein lies the problem. I speak, of course, of Rule 34.

See, Rule 34 of the Internet states that no matter what it is, be it fish, fowl, Ford or furniture, on the internet, you can find p()rno based on it.

No treasured childhood cartoon or memory is exempt. Snow White? Seen her gettin' stuffed by the 7 Dwarves. Captain Kangaroo? Got emailed a cartoon of him in a leather bar doing unspeakable things with Bunny Rabbit, Mr. Moose and a bucket of ping pong balls...

It can get ugly. It sometimes can make you want to claw your eyes out.

So, I'm betting that it'll take no time at all before I'm emailed a pic or film clip of these cute little bottles being shoved up someone's nether orifices.

Ain't technology grand?

(On a side note, if there's any BattleTech players still out there, these bottles (with some kitbashing, styrene sculpting and a good paint job) are dead ringers for the Overlord-class dropship, and with a little work and some skill, you could wrangle out a Union-class dropship as well. They appear to pretty much cover a 7-hex map area. Just a thought...)

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Do You Have A Nose For Science?

An Inquiry Into Snot And Phlegming

OK, let's say you've got a booger on your finger.

I won't inquire how it got there, that's not important. I can say with some authority that it's very likely that 99.99% of humans that possess both noses and fingers have been in this situation at some point in their lives.

Now, you don't want to go around all day with the booger on your finger. I mean, you can, but what an awful surprise for the next person you shake hands with!

No, you want to get rid of the booger. If you're of the prissy hygienic sort, you've probably had all your boogers surgically removed, but in an emergency, you'll find a tissue and dispose of said booger into the trash bin followed by a session of Purell hand sanitizing.

If you're a couch potato, odds are the booger will join its hundreds of nose-mates on the backside of the couch, barring the few that are wedged into the TV remote button pad.

If you're outside the house, or possess pets or small children suitable as moving targets, then the Booger-Flick is the preferred means of disposal. There's a problem with this method, which leads me to the main subject of this essay... How to get the got-damned booger off your finger!

See, on initial extraction, the booger is an amorphous mass that clings to as much finger real estate as possible. It's almost pointless to try and flick it off in this form.

What you need to do is reduce the surface area, the "booger footprint" as it were. Oftimes a transfer to another finger might be in order, if you're the type that pinky-picks your nostrils. Try as hard as you may, it's tough to get a good flick off the pinky.

Experienced Booger-Flickers know it's all about the Roll. You've got to get some circular action going between the thumb and the finger of choice, and reduce the surface area of the booger, and let it assume a spherical shape. That way, it minimizes the "booger footprint", and allows a rapid departure of the booger upon the Finger Flick.

This method is not foolproof. See, there's something that's been puzzling me about certain boogers. They just don't seem to want to let go. They cling to your epidermis like a Democrat clings to outdated social programs. You flick and flick and flick, and the booger just stubbornly refuses to launch itself towards the cat.

So, knowing that these tenacious boogers exist, and knowing how mystifying it is that a booger can be touching your finger by no more that a pinpoint, and still resist multiple flicks until you give up and wipe it on the curtains, my question for you is this...

Has any one mentioned this to 3M or the Elmer's Glue people? Where's our booger-based adhesive technology? I think we might have the next Superglue tucked up in our sinuses!

Your thoughts are welcome, especially concerning whether this is a solution that would require reagents and catalysts, or distillation, or some other refining means. Tapping into the toddler/preschool market would pretty much guarantee an unlimited supply of raw material...

Monday, November 26, 2007

Nothing Ever Goes As Planned

"I'm back in the saddle again,Where Blogspot has crashed yet again,Where the Blowneyed bloggers feedon my often puerile screeds,I'm back in the saddle again!"

Well, that was the week that was...

First time I've had a solid week off since going to work for The Man back in mid-2004. Counting the weekends, 9 days of freedom.

Man, I had plans. Well laid plans, fit for mice or men.

Didn't hardly nuthin' go right...

1st Saturday was OK. Got up, fiddled about the house, fed the cats, the usual. Left to go visit Collector's Firearms, then a leisurely late lunch at Macaroni Grill. Evening spent buried in a novel. Good day!

1st Sunday, not too bad. Fiddled around the house, websurfed longer than I needed to, then off to Gander Mountain for ammo purchase for National Ammo Day. Spent $$ that I really couldn't afford on 100 rounds of .357 Mag, and 500 rounds of .22LR fodder. If you haven't bought ammo in a while, be ready for a shock. That brick of .22 cost me $17, and was only $10 this time last year.Back home, had a nap attack that lasted all evening and into the wee hours. WTF, I'm on vacation!

I'd just gotten out of the shower, and was in front of the oscillating fan drying out the dangly bits. (very refreshing in conjunction with peppermint soap, highly recommended!) Every single pair of underwear had just gone into the washer, and every pair of trousers I own (and can fit into...) had just gone into the dryer. Everything's just wet as wet can be. I'm perched on the bedside buck nekkid, reading the novel du jour and occasionally lifting a cheek so the taint can get some fan-blown air, too. I'm all about a dry taint. Keeps warheadsfrom forming...

OK, so all is going peachy-keen, until there's a loud *POP* and the whole house goes dark. Fan grinds to a halt. TV in next room is quiet. A/C shuts off.W... T... F....

I peek out the window to see if there's a storm cloud or a tornado violating my airspace, and see naught but a Centerpoint Energy drone getting into his truck and driving off. I'm an electricity junkie forced to go cold turkey...

Housemates Uno and Dos have decamped to parts distant until Thanksgiving Day. I had assumed when I handed over my 1/3 of the monthly monies, the funds would be put to good use.

I was *SO* wrong...

Housemate Uno likes to play "chicken" with the power company billing process, and waits until the bill is 29 days past due, then runs & pays it. Unfortunately for me, day 29 came three days after Housemate Uno had left town.

Want the fun part? Against my advice, Housemate Uno had switched the casa over to a VOIP phone system. You know that fancy modem that controls your cable, Internet and now telephones? Plugs right into the wall socket... Not only are you in the dark, but you can't even call for help.

So, wrapped in a grubby bathrobe, I go get my cell phone out of the truck and commence to blisterizing Housemate Uno's eardrums across 200 miles of Texas. Threats involving dousing Housemate Uno's belongings in kerosene and burning them out back are taken seriously, and somehow Centerpoint Energy gets their pound of flesh. Problem is, they can't guarantee renewed power before midnight, and maybe not for 48 hours.

Enter the Realm of Suck. Get paid on Wednesday. Until then, not enough $$ for a hotel, even a sleazy dive.

You can wash the laundry soap out of a pair of skivvies. You can wring them out really well. You cannot dry them by waving them in the air in the humid air of Houston. You must wear damp BVD's. You must also wear damp trousers. This will make you quite grumpy and out-of-sorts.

Anyway, long story short, it was an 18 hour odyssey of hanging out in various retail establishments, all-night diners and much driving around the truck to stay cool on an unseasonably warm day & evening.

This threw my whole week out of whack. Blew my sleep schedule, killed any chance of writing, and just threw me into a deep blue funk I'm just now peeking out from under.

Thanksgiving was OK, 2nd weekend was miserable, 'cause I dosed the cats with nuclear flea juice I got from the vet, and Betsy Cat swole up like a sausage on a grill. Pookie Cat went into a 2 day nap. I was on cat watch the whole time hoping they wouldn't go into spasms and keel over. I had one scary moment where I thought Betsy Cat was having convulsions, but it turned out she just couldn't get a grip on a formica desktop with her back claws, and was kicking like a bullfrog until I yanked her away from the edge.

Monday, November 19, 2007

National Ammo Day!

Go Buy Some Vittles For Your Boomstick!

I should have been plugging this earlier, but today is National Ammo Day! If you're a gun-o-phile, get thee hence to a purveyor of ammunition, and buy at least 100 rounds of centerfire ammo! (500 rounds will do for rimfire.)

The goal of National Ammo Day is to empty the ammunition from the shelves of your local gun store, sporting goods, or hardware store and put that ammunition in the hands of law-abiding citizens. Make your support of the Second Amendment known--by voting with your dollars!

Thursday, November 15, 2007

You Are NOT Allergic To Pot...

Look, Just Say No Already!

I've made no secret of the fact that I was a bit of a pothead back in the day. My first inhale was made as a freshman in high school in 1982, my last exhale was in 2003. I'd been 100% on the wagon since '96 or thereabouts, but I stumbled across my old honey-bear bong when I moved to Houston in Jan. 2003, and thought "What the hell..."

I'm not particularly proud of my weed-smoking past. I do try to walk the straight & narrow path most of the time, and even though dope was only made illegal (IMHO) to the efforts of the alcohol & wood pulp/paper industries, along with the early 20th century racial scares about dark-skinned hopheads having their way with the white wimmens, it's still illegal, and my distaste for incarceration outweighs my preference for illegal intoxicants.

OTOH, I'm not ashamed of smoking the marijohoonie, either. Me and 97.5 million other Americans have huffed the hashpipe in the past, and somehow, the country keeps rolling along.

Every so often I'll run across someone that insists they've never tried weed because "I'm allergic to it".

Bullshit.

Look, it's OK to walk the straightedge path. If you don't want to smoke the reefer, just say so. I've had the most bodacious blunts and luscious magic brownies pass before me, and somehow I've dredged up the intestinal fortitude to ignore peer pressure (which doesn't go away when you're adults, kiddies) and take a pass. Falling back on some lame-ass excuse that "I'm allergic!" just makes you sound like a pussy. You're either scared of trying it, 'cause you still believe that "one puff and you're a psycho" Reefer Madness propaganda, or you're scared to say no in front of your stoner buddies.

No, you're probably not. Know how I know? I asked my allergist. They don't do the skin scratch test or the needle skin-pop series with cannabinoid concentrates, so there's no way you got a medical diagnosis that you're allergic to the herbage.

"But..but..but... when I try to smoke dope, I hack & cough and get all mucous-y and my nose runs!!"

Well, Dr. House, if you don't smoke tobacco, it's no wonder some raw unfiltered ditchweed is choking you up. Even if you do smoke, try ripping off the filter or buying a pack of Chesterfields and see how that treats your lungs. Hell, a 3-liter powerbong hit had me gasping for oxygen for the better part of a week. There's a slight possibility that you're sensitive to mold spores that can be present on badly-cured weed, but in this era of hydroponics and growlights, that's rare.

"But..but..but... when I tried pot brownies, I threw up bucketfuls!! I gotta be allergic!!"

How much did you have to drink that night, Sparky? Usually when the Tupperware container of magic brownies gets uncorked, the party's been rolling for hours, and you were already halfway loaded. Then, you kept right on drinking wondering when the rush was gonna hit you. I know, I've watched plenty of you noobs, and you just have no idea how to moderate. Also, no telling what's in those brownies. I'm fairly sure they don't spray dope fields with Paraquat anymore, but you never know...

If you don't want to smoke, just say so. I can respect that. When I hear you beg off due to "allergies", A) I strongly suspect you're lying, which puts everything else that comes outta your pie-hole in question, and B) I strongly suspect you're a pussy, which is almost as bad, and C) Since I won't be smoking weed as long as I'm at this stupid piss-testing job, you can use me as a moral crutch if the need arises, so there's no need to lie!

Don't say "I'm allergic", just say "El Cap and I could schmoke the schwag if we wanted to, but we just choose not to. 'Cause we're cool like that." Stick with me on this, and later we'll have fun sipping single-malt scotch & throwing Twinkies at the almost comatose but still ravenous potheads collapsed on the couch.

That reminds me, I need a few cans of that canned cranberry wiggly stuff... See, there's a quick & easy recipe for Thanksgiving leftovers about 30 minutes after the feast. Casually saunter over to the dinner table. Take a dinner roll, and place one piece turkey, one thin scoop stuffing, one spoonful cranberry wiggly stuff inside. Dip roll in gravy boat when no one's looking. Eat. Moan in gluttonous joy. Repeat until comatose.

Want Any Crossbred Puppies?

They Make The Perfect Xmas Gift!!

Well, the neighborhood horn-dog slipped his leash and managed to impregnate one of the local females.

I can't say exactly what type of bird dog will result from the pairing, but I'll bet they're some fast-swimming sumbitches. Also, don't be surprised if you catch the pups with their head ducked down inside the water bowl, and their butts pointed up in the air.

Friday, November 09, 2007

My Brain Just Asploded...

You never know where your inquisitive mind will lead you, though sometimes you get into matters completely over your head...

I persist in the belief that I'm somewhat smarter than the average bear, but every so often I'm painfully reminded that there are subjects that I may never have a firm grasp on.

F'rinstance, this just makes my head hurt:

The tesseract can be constructed in a number of different ways. As a regular polytope constructed by three cubes folded together around every edge, it has Schläfli symbol {4,3,3}. Constructed as a 4D hyperprism made of two parallel cubes, it can be named as a composite Schläfli symbol {4,3}x{ }. As a duoprism, a Cartesian product of two squares, it can be named by a composite Schläfli symbol {4}x{4}.

Since each vertex of a tesseract is adjacent to four edges, the vertex figure of the tesseract is a regular tetrahedron. The dual polytope of the tesseract is called the hexadecachoron, or 16-cell, with Schläfli symbol {3,3,4}.The standard tesseract in Euclidean 4-space is given as the convex hull of the points (±1, ±1, ±1, ±1). That is, it consists of the points:

A tesseract is bounded by eight hyperplanes (xi = ±1). Each pair of non-parallel hyperplanes intersects to form 24 square faces in a tesseract. Three cubes and three squares intersect at each edge. There are four cubes, six squares, and four edges meeting at every vertex. All in all, it consists of 8 cubes, 24 squares, 32 edges, and 16 vertices.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

More Bad Movie Than Meets The Eye

A couple of people from the office recommended the Transformers movie to me. I must go harangue them after I post this.

No way was I gonna go shell out $8.50 plus bucket o' popcorn and drink to see it, so I waited for the DVD release.

Man, talk about your major suck-fests. There were at least 10 times I could recall reaching for the Kill switch on the DVD player, only to hold back to see just how bad it could get.

It got that bad...

There comes a time when all the whiz-bang CGI special effects in the world just can't put a high-tech shine on a turd. There also comes a time when a man realizes that the last few bits of leftover 14-year-old boy have been permanently eradicated from his psyche.

This mass of turdaceous suckularity was custom-made for 14-year-old boys and those 80's maturity-holdouts who still play with their Hasbro toy robot-cars. There's really nothing to recommend to any other age group.

Let me list the biggest lumps of Suckular turdaceousness:

1) It's not the over-the-top Suck of the usual summer fare. This is insidious, sneaky Suck. You think there might be something redeeming, be it the character development, the big battle scenes, or at least a good titty flash. Nope, none of that. Just a slow swallowing by the SuckMonster.

2) The Doofus Dad - One of my personal pet peeves. Be it commercials, sitcoms, or blockbuster summer movies, Hollywood never fails to make the Dad a complete nebbish. This has probably done more to undermine the family unit and disrupt society than anything else they've done.

3) Orange people - Why were both the male and female leads a vibrant orange color? Look, ya maroons, it's called a tanning bed. Look into it. Those tanning pills just make you look like an animated carrot.

4) The horrible, horrible casting. Where else will you find Jon Voight, John Turturro, Anthony Anderson, and this weasel-faced Shia LeBoeuf character in one flick?

Monday, November 05, 2007

Knot Really Working

Jena... Ain't That A Brand Of Frozen Pizzas?

Somewhere in my big pile o' crap is a box containing most of my old corporate training gear from my last job. Pounds & pounds of manuals, certification stuff, handouts, and all the other detritus of schlepping all over North America to deliver the Gospel according to Canton, MA. (old company's HQ location)

Somewhere in that box is a videotape that could get me tarred and feathered by the PC police.

I went through several certification courses on the path to becoming a trainer, the most stringent of which was infinitely less taxing than my college Intro to Geology class (aka 'Rocks for Jocks').

One of the courses required a videotaped session of me teaching the rest of the class how to accomplish a task. The tape was so that you could go back and critique your own performance. The session was to last 10 minutes, you had to have visual aids & handouts, and each classmate must be able to perform the task by the end of the 10 minute period. Easy, right?

Actually, yes. Whatever faults I may have, leading a class isn't one of them. This was going to be a breeze, but I needed a task I could manage inside of 10 minutes, and I was pretty sure that dolphin-flogging was not a viable option.

I thought about it for a while, and finally decided to fall back on my knowledge of ropes and knots learned as a Boy Scout.

You can see where this is going, can't you?

I went to Home Depot for 200 feet of 3/8" manila rope, & Walgreen's for a box of waxed dental floss. I then went home & sat on the couch as I cut off fifteen 12-foot lengths of rope, whipped the ends to prevent fraying, and practiced my performance.

The next day, in front of a rolling camera, I taught 15 people how to tie a hangman's noose in less than 10 minutes. I even had enough time left over to discuss placement of the noose for neck-breaking vs. slow strangulation, and the dangers of too far a drop with a heavy individual. (The head can sometimes pop off...)

Not one person in the class had any issues with what I taught. It must be mentioned though, that not one person in the class was black, either. In fact, that place was so lily-white that it wasn't until 6 or 8 weeks later that someone finally complained about the noose hanging in my office. I had just tossed it up on a shelf after class, but part of the knot & loop was dangling off the shelf and apparently gave some passerby a case of the heebie-jeebies.

I'm sure if I tried to re-run that class now, it would make national news, and I'd be banished to Timbuktu.

Howeve, I believe in preserving knowledge for knowledge's sake. You never know when you might be called upon to help the next Saddam Hussein to meet his maker, so if you want to learn how to tie a hangman's noose, just bring your rope to the next blogmeet, and I'll set you straight.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

You Can Still Buy Tiddies!!!

I was reminiscin' about my lost yoot, and one of the things I was regretting was not being able to put my feets back in some Tiddies.

OK, for you who are now wondering if I have some sort of fetish, Tiddies are a type of sandal, invented in Pasadena, TX back in the 70's. They were mucho popular back when I still looked good in a swimsuit.

On that note, you can still get Birdwell Beach Britches! They used to sell 'em in Beall's (remember those?) but they only carried up to size 38 or 40, so if you were a "husky" yoot, you were SOL. If you order from the factory, though, you can get 'em up to size LardAss & 1/2.

Anyway, they are still selling Tiddies! With a soft foam insole and rubber surgical tubing for straps, they were the cat's ass for beach cruising or pool lounging. I'd take 'em over a pair of Crocs anyday!

Man, with some nylon Birdwells on your ass, Tiddies on your feet, and a Seven Seas Surf Shop t-shirt, you were one stylin' mofo walking down the Galveston Island seawall in 1985! Seven Seas is long gone, but I'm at the stage in life where a roomy guayabera or a really loud & ugly Hi-woyan flowerdy shirt is a better choice!

Oh, one final mucho importante note...

Getting burned on that red light camera post convinced me to do a bit more research before hitting the "Publish" button. It seems that the above link to the Tiddies website might not be the best one for buying sandals.

Apparently there was much drama between the inventor of Tiddies and an ex-wife, and he now runs a separate company making what is essentially the same sandal under a different name. Here's his site, called Pirate Sandals.

For obvious reasons, I'm going to have to order the pirate sandals, especially if they offer a Baboon Pirates model. OTOH, I must buy a pair of real Tiddies as well, if for no other reason than to go wear them in from of my mother. She absolutely LOATHED the Tiddies logo, and forbid me to take them off my feet so the logo would show if "respectable folk" were anywhere in eyesight!

Be Sure Your Sin Will Find You Out

At This Stage In Life You'd Think I'd Know Better...

So, let's say you crank out a post that's somewhat amusing, but not in the best of taste. Against your better judgement, and even after adding some legal disclaimers, you post it anyway, and hope that no one actually starts following your advice.

Later, it turns out that your research was flawed, and instead of recommending the termination with extreme prejudice of The Man's Tools of Oppression, you're actually advocating farking up the smooth flow of traffic.

You could kill the post, but that's a bad precedent to set. Mostly, you just hope it'll fade into the background.

So, what happens instead?

Someone at the local newsdaily finds it intriguing enough to link to, and the hits just keep on comin'...